U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney
District of Massachusetts
April 7, 1994
_PRESS_RELEASE_
BOSTON, Ma ...A federal grand jury returned a felony
indictment today charging an MIT student in a computer fraud
scheme resulting in the piracy of an estimated million dollars in
business and entertainment computer software.
United States Attorney Donald K. Stern and FBI Special Agent
In Charge Richard Swenson announced today that DAVID LAMACCHIA,
age 20, currently a junior at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, was charged in a one count felony indictment with
conspiring to commit wire fraud. The indictment charges that
between November 21, 1993 and January 5, 1994 LAMACCHIA operated
a computer bulletin board service that permitted users to copy
copyrighted business and entertainment software without paying to
purchase the software. The bulletin board was operated without
authorization on MIT computer work stations and was accessible to
users worldwide over the Internet, a collection of computer
networks connecting educational, government, and commercial sites
around the world. Losses from the illegal distribution and
pirating of the software are estimated to exceed a million
dollars.
U.S. Attorney Stern stated, "The pirating of business and
entertainment software through clandestine computer bulletin
boards is tremendously costly to software companies, and by
extension to their employees and to the economy. We need to
respond to the culture that no one is hurt by these thefts and
that there is nothing wrong with pirating software."
Stern continued, "In this new electronic environment it has
become increasingly difficult to protect intellectual property
rights. Therefore, the government views large scale cases of
software piracy, whether for profit or not, as serious crimes and
will devote such resources as are necessary to protect those
rights."
The investigation leading to this indictment was conducted
by special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with the
cooperation of MIT. The case will be prosecuted by Assistant
U.S. Attorney Jeanne M. Kempthorne, a member of Stern's Major
Crimes Unit.